Mele Kalikimaka!!

How can today already be Christmas?!?! Seems like just yesterday the summer was starting. This year has just flown by. I thought it would be a perfect time to post our past Christmas cards to the blog. I'll post the 2008 card later in the week. Looking forward to an exciting new year! Time to get back to the Christmas Story marathon. We are going to have to get one of those lamps one day. Cheers!

Mele Kalikimaka!! 2007 Christmas Card

This was our 2007 Christmas Card. Laura still has that Wonder Woman outfit. These Christmas cards are just the gift that keeps on giving. Cheers!

Mele Kalikimaka!! 2006 Christmas Card

This was our 2006 Christmas Card. I know... we all just loook so natural. This brings a whole new meaning to Grillin' and Chillin'. Cheers!

Mele Kalikimaka!! 2005 Christmas Card

This was our 2005 Christmas Card. Nothing like a Hillbilly Christmas. Cheers!

Mele Kalikimaka!! 2004 Christmas Card

This was our 2004 Christmas Card. Anyone want to guess where we went on our summer vacation? I'll give you one guess. It rhymes with "Frisbeehand." Cheers!

Mele Kalikimaka!! 2003 Christmas Card

This was our 2003 Christmas Card. Everyone is wearing a paper mask that we found in a little shop in Germany. Cheers!

Mele Kalikimaka!! 2002 Christmas Card

This was our 2002 Christmas Card. Everyone seems so peaceful! Well...almost everyone. Cheers!

Mele Kalikimaka!! 2001 Christmas Card

This was our 2001 Christmas Card. It is all fun and games until the shaving cream starts heating up. Cheers!

It's Christmas Time in the City

Aloha....It's hard to believe that Christmas is already here. We have the boys before Christmas this year, so we will be celebrating our Christmas on Sunday, 12/21. Today however, we went on our annual trip down to the Trail of Lights. We made a quick stop by Chuy's and had some dinner and then it was on to the exciting glow of Christmas cheer down at Zilker Park. Ryan's girlfriend, Sarah, joined us for our annual event. The great thing this year is it was in the upper 60's while we toured the lighted extravaganza, so we didn't freeze our rear ends off like in previous years. Cheers!

Dominoes Anyone

Well our weekend started out getting ready for Hurricane Ike. We secured everything

outside getting ready for the high winds and rain. Friday night we went with the boys to the high school football game. The wind started picking up while we were at the game, so we definitely figured we would be getting our share of this enormous hurricane. Saturday morning we got up to what I would call breezy morning with an overcast sky. By now we should have been getting poured on. We checked the news to find out that the hurricane had turned more north. For the folks along the coast line it was not a good scene. For us it meant not even a drop of rain. Laura and I were left with no other choice other than sitting on the back deck playing dominoes and drinking cocktails all afternoon. Sunday was another day of kicking back. We put all of the outdoor furniture back out since it didn't look like we were going to get high winds from the hurricane. Then we went to Home Depot and picked up 3 Queen Palm trees and planted them along the pool. Looks like it is time for another cocktail. Cheers!

Historical Dirty Day

This afternoon was a day that will go down in history for our project. Brace yourselves folks, because this is a big one. All the DIRT has finally been moved!! I repeat...All the DIRT has finally been moved!! It's like this big dirt cloud has been lifted from our house. No more piles of dirt in different parts of the yard that need to be moved. We would like to thank all of our friends and family who helped make our dirt disappear. Either by taking some dirt, helping move some dirt, giving us words of encouragement like..."What could you all possibly do with all of that dirt?" or "I'm sure you will be glad once you get all of that dirt moved." or my favorite "You all are still moving dirt?" Well all I can say is... When you been gettin DIRTY as long as we have.... I guess in this case you eventually get it all moved. I do have to say it is exciting to think that we will no longer have dirt moving as one of our weekend activities that we need to get to. It is definitely time for a cocktail. Dirty Martini anyone?!? Cheers!

Trip 'N Falls

Aloha! Where has the summer gone?!? I am not sure what happened since we got back from Cozumel, but the time has just flown by. Maybe I am still on Island Time. Over the next few days I will be going back and posting some pics of what all has been going on since then. Today, however, there was a huge event. Laura and her sister Denise participated for the third straight year in the Women's Adventure Race. Their team name is the Trip 'N Falls. Not only did they participate, but they placed 5th in the Master's Category finishing in 48 minutes and 44 seconds. and they got 1st place for raising the most money out of everyone who entered the race. Talk about AWESOME!! The fundraising supports the Young Survival Coalition and Go Outside. We are all very proud of the great job they did out on the race course today. Looks like they are ready to hit the hot tub. Cheers!

From One Island to Another

We got back into Houston just after noon and headed back to Austin. We stopped in Brenham and had some lunch at Casa Ole. We both got the Cozumel plate, I mean come on, would we have gotten anything else?! When we got home Laura got a big surprise. Brian Ritter, of Protective Coating and Remodeling had a new Island installed in the kitchen while we were gone. Before we left Brian and I had it all planned out, so that Laura would come home to a big surprise. And was she ever surprised. She absolutely loved it. They did an awesome job on it. With our incredible new addition to the house our old island seemed so small since we had so much extra room in our kitchen. If I haven't said it enough through the whole building process, Protective Coating and Remodeling has done an AWESOME job. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening around our own paradise hanging out in the pool and hot tub. It was like we were still in Mexico, other than we had to get our own cocktails. We do miss our bartender, Hillario. Cheers!

Just Another Week in Paradise Day 8

It was an early morning. My eyes look a little tired for some reason. We had to be down for breakfast at 7am. It's been a while since we have been up this early. There were some clouds in the sky and we had a morning rain. We have a lot of great memories, made some new friends and have a little less stress from our new found paradise. The exciting thing is we knew we had a paradise waiting for us at home. Cheers!

Just Another Week in Paradise Night 7

We met up at the bar with our great new friends from Germany, Carsten and Peyman. Carsten is a Financier. He currently lives in Switzerland and is taking some time off to travel. Peyman is a dentist and lives in Wiesbaden, Germany. This was Peyman's first holiday in 7 years. I would say it was about time. Take a look at Peyman's website. The building he is in is over 200 years old. They are going to be in Mexico for 2 weeks. From here they are off to Cancun for a week. We had a great time at the bar with our friends. Nothing like having cocktails with friends in paradise. Cheers!

Just Another Week in Paradise Day 7

Today was another awesome day. After our great breakfast Laura and I went down and rented a wave runner. Talk about an incredible experience. Nothing like riding up and down the crystal blue waters jumping the waves. After our fun ride we headed back to the pool. Our friends we met day one, from San Antonio, Carlos and Diva were hanging out too. They were there celebrating their 37th anniversary. Later that afternoon Laura and I took a snorkeling excursion out on the Fury. It is a big catamaran that takes you out to a couple of places to snorkel. We saw all kinds of colorful fish, stingray and baracudda. After snorkeling they served cocktails on the way back to the resort. Aaahh yes...nothing sucks about that whole experience. It was incredible. We ended the evening at Vista Del Mar for dinner and then back to Sabor to the outdoor bar. Cheers!

Just Another Week in Paradise Day 6

Today we started out with a great breakfast as usual. Then it was on to a day sitting at the pool and lunch at Mosaique. We had an awesome afternoon at the beach and ended it with dinner at Roberto's with our new friends from Germany Carsten Hoffman and Peyman Hodawandkhani. They were on holiday for a couple of weeks. Now that is the way to take a holiday. Cheers!

Just Another Week in Paradise Day 5

Now that's the way to read. Gotta love our bartender Hillario's office. Talk about a fun way to get down to the main pool from the rooms, right outside the bottom floor rooms is a wading pool that has a slide that ends up in the main pool. Nothing like coming down the slide and ending up right at the swim up bar. After dinner at Vista Del Mar, we spent an evening with our new friends Evan and Ellen from Wichita, Kansas at the Aura bar. We ended up back at the Sabor bar. Then we headed over to the beach bar restaurant. Who would have known that they were open till 1am and they serve Cheeseburgers. Nothing like a cheeseburger in paradise after a late night in a paradise bar. Cheers!